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Costs budgets

“We have had varied experiences with Costs Lawyers, who are a great help on detailed assessments and bill challenges at the end of cases. However, the profession has more to do in perfecting its approach to estimating how much a case is going to cost.”

Personally I probably average about 75% to 80% recovery at budget hearings. With the rates sought this is acceptable in my opinion.

The Defendants budgets are always agreed before the hearing. This is because, with a handful of exceptions, the Budgets are so inept (or strategic) that the mind boggles.

Insurers and the NHSLA appear to have given the edict that Defendant budgets are to be prepared strategically and to undervalue the work required so as to make the Claimant’s Budget look bad. This was conceded by a Defendant representative in a hearing I attended before a specialist personal injury Judge.

On about 4 separate occasions now I have had judges mark the court file that the defendant Budget was of no use whatsoever as a comparator to the Claimant’s Budget as it grossly under estimated the work required.

I have seen £5000 for counsel to undertake a 5-day trial?? More recently £25,0000 for a QC to undertake a 10-day Trial. All I will say is get a grip as you are undermining your own position – the Judges are not fools and know what is happening

We are not on a level playing field particularly in Clin neg cases which are frequently funded by insurers. Counsel’s fees, experts fees and solicitors fees are low due to agreements reached with insurers. You are not comparing like for like and it is not unusual to get a QC doing a ten day trial for £25k on the basis that the QC will get repeat work.

Did you read the first part of the post? “we rely on what we are advised by our solicitor clients and OUR EXPERIENCE” in my opinion budgets shouldn’t be done by anyone without significant experience and I am certainly not lazy!!

@ Realist – au contraire, the poor lawyers are usually those who get TC’s, and then “trained” by being RTA Portal lackeys – cheap labour at its worst. Hence one Liverpool firm advertising in the Gazette recently for a “RTA Portal fee earner” at less than minimum wage, the ad being from a “manager” who I took 2 RTA solicitors from to be draftsmen, only to find they didn’t know what happened in a case post issue….

These are the sorts of discussions that have led to all of these reforms being required in the first place.

If common sense and reason ever came into legal costs negotiations then 95% of issues we all deal with every day, whether we are cost lawyers or draftsmen or whatever, would be dealt with with minimal bother and at much lower cost.

Instead, we continue to engage in these school yard antics in the interests of self perpetuation.

I have two degrees, one in history, one in law and I have my LPC. I made a positive decision to pursue a career in costs because I quickly realised that solicitors simply don’t want to deal with costs themselves. If someone wants to pay me to count their letters, or pay me to think about how many letters they may write at a future point, who is the real fool?

“The problem, of course, is that most cost draftsmen are poor lawyers in that they have probably completed their Law degree and LPC but were unable to get a training contract.”

Yes that is very much me. Although I dont accept the poor part

“How on earth would they know how to run a case competentley? and if they don’t know, then how can they budget for a case accurately?

This, gentlemen and women is the real Elephant in the room”

Actually I think I am quiet good at understanding cases and how they are conducted. Its always a joy when a Grade A solicitor prepares their own budget for the opposition as I have great fun picking it apart at hearings.

There are, no doubt, some very good costs draftsman/lawyers who are able to dissect and budget a case with ease, however, the vast majority cannot do so effectively.

I say this whilst looking at yet another computer generated budget provided by a cost draftsman, where the assumptions and estimated time bear no resemblance to the case and where the statement of truth is incorrect.

His arrogant reply to my objections – ‘grow up; the court will not look at this budget in that much detail, it is irrelevant if there are minor mistakes’

Interesting article in today’s Litigation Futures, stating from a leading PII provider for CLowns that claims against CLowns show “a larger influx of claims and/or notifications for costs lawyers since last year”

Stating the obvious, if claims are indeed up, doesn’t that suggest, as does the headline in this original Blog piece, that the reality is, CLowns are not all they pretend to be?